Washington Day Two
October 14th, 2007Yesterday was a nice surprise, a fun “gift” from Sean. We flew a Cessna 172 from Paine Field to Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands archipelago, Sean as pilot and I as co-pilot (or co-pitot, according to the misspelled sticker at the site of the headphone jacks.) Missed the approach on the way in and aborted the landing, narrowly pulling out in time to avoid the small hill (a bump, really) and treetops ahead. Bounced hard on the second attempt, but otherwise went quite well — landed heading into the wind this time.
Had lunch at Vern’s Bayside on Main Street, Eastsound. Having looked online for the restaurant this morning, I was surprised to see so many people trashing it with one-star reviews on several websites. Sure, service was a little slow and unresponsive, but the waitress was reasonably friendly and interactive. Food (steamed mussels and garlic bread) was good, middle-of-the-road fare. Bonus points for serving Henry Weinhard’s root beer. Not on tap, though.
Nabbed three geocaches on the little island and took off back home. No mishaps on the takeoff, as long as you weren’t a big black bird that decided to race the little plane. Bird lost. Messily. I took the controls on the way out during the ascent, flying most of the way back until we descended to 2000 feet on the approach to Paine Field. Ended the last full day here with some more Pocket Tanks. Great day!
October 15th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Aw, c’mon. I cleared the hill with plenty of room to spare. Where’s yer sensa drama?
October 15th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
“Don’t laugh!” said the pilot, as we “cleared the hill with plenty of room to spare.”
Where’s yer sensa humour? *grin*
October 17th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Did we hit it? Huh? Did we? You walked away from the landing. That’s that standard we go by.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:42 am
And you forgot to mention the Minis! LOL
October 18th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Yeah, I was just thinking about that left-out piece of information at lunch today. Never seen such a saturation of Minis in one location; highly unexpected to find more than a dozen Mini Coopers in a stretch of three short blocks on a lowly populated island in the middle of a Northern archipelago just shy of the 49th parallel.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Ended up on Orca’s (and at Vern’s) the other weekend when my Dad and brother came to visit. Not a mini to be seen….